Burning Hatred
by Gewhana
Summary: Aya has been locked in the school for sixteen years. When she escapes with the help of a whitecoat, Ana, and meets the flock, her life is leaving the days of dark cages behind. But Aya has her secrets, like everyone else. But these? They just might kill her. Follow her story, whith the flock and some new unexpected arrivals.
1. The School

**Disclaimer: I do not own Maximum Ride or its characters.**

It's dark. Really dark. And cold. I pretty sure they all left, or maybe this is another test. I don't sense anyone. I don't even think the cameras are up.

I stare at the darkness in front of me, holding my breath and counting just to see how long I can do it. 1… 2… 50… 300… 575… 890… 1325… I let the air blow through my lungs, even though I don't need to.

If they are going to abandon this stupid place, can't they at least leave some decent entertainment?

I sigh loudly in the darkness, spreading my wings slowly behind me, or as far as they can go in the confines of my dog crate. Which isn't far.

I shiver in the weak hospital gown they put me in, ignoring the grumbling of my stomach. They can't have worked on me for sixteen years just to let me starve, can they?

My world's been plunged into darkness for somewhere around forty-eight hours now, I think. It's not a good world, but it's the only one I have left.

As long as I'm a good little experiment, let them give me the shots, take me to surgery, run through their mazes, I can live relatively pain free.

An important lesson for the genetically experimented on: they don't care about you, something I learned long, long ago. They can hurt me as much as they want as long as they don't kill me. It's better not to fight it.

And now I'm sitting in a medium size dog crate, in a flimsy hospital gown, shivering and listening to my stomach grumble.

All these freaking powers they gave me, and I can't even get out of a dog crate!

I slam my hand hard against the side of my prison with an unsatisfying _thud_.

"Who's there?" A sudden voice calls. What? There are others in here?

I scuttle over to the bars of my cage, looking back and forth in the dark for the source of the voice. It sounded like a little girl.

"Me." I croak, my throat burning with the effort. Did I mention I'm thirsty, too? Also, I don't talk a lot. Only when they want me to. Which isn't often.

"I'm Angel." The girls voice says. How old is she? She sounds young, maybe seven. I gulp, drowning out the horrifying thoughts that threaten to invade me. Instead, I respond.

"How long have you been here?"

"I just got here. I've only been here for a couple hours, I think."

So it is a test. The darkness, that is. They must've brought her in while I was sleeping earlier. Suddenly, the lights flash on. Across from me, through the bars, I can see a small girl. Really, the only way to describe her is angelic. Her eyes are a wide, innocent blue, and blonde curls fall down her shoulders.

She's shaking violently, and looks like she's about to cry.

"Um, where are you from?" I glance away from her. I haven't really had a lot of practice with consoling people.

I feel a sudden pull on my mind, and I immediately block it out. Was she trying to read my mind?!

"You can read minds?" The girl, Angel, what a fitting name, shrugs. We sit in silence for a few minutes.

"Do you have wings?" Angel pipes, suddenly, causing me to jump and nearly hit my head on the roof of my dog crate.

In answer, I flutter my wings slightly, bringing them back into view. I realize now, that Angel wears regular pants and a shirt.

I'm not sure what my wings look like, but they're at least a little black from the feathers I can see.

"They match your hair and eyes." She says simply.

I know my hair is dark, but I'm not sure what color my eyes are. I wish I had a mirror.

When I look back up, Angel has spread her own wings out, which are pure white.

"Wow." I say. She could seriously pass as an actual angel.

Suddenly, the door pops open and a single white coat, my name for the scientists here, enters the room. It's Ana, a young, pretty looking blonde woman with sharp, green eyes.

"Hey." She says in a soft voice before frowning. "I've gotta take you out. I think they're just doing the standard exercise today. Maybe a few more nutrient shots because of the whole black-out thing. How are you doing?"

I've discovered that a few of the whitecoats make okay friends, allies. Ana's the only person I've ever trusted. If I had parents, I'd want them to be nice like Ana. She's told me her story in bits and pieces, a very unhappy one I might add, and she tries to keep things not so painful and dangerous. Also, she lets me talk.

"I'm fine. Hungry, thirsty and cold, but I'm alive." Ana looks troubled "Could I get some real clothes? Like…" I pause, glancing at Angel "Like her?"

Ana nods

"Of course. I can get them for you today, for the exercise. I have something for you." She takes a small pack from under her arm and passes it into my dog crate.

"Hide this by the back." She whispers "I'll get you out of here soon, I promise." She smiles widely at me and I ease myself out of the dog crate, slowly standing up.

I have been here for sixteen years, and while it's not useful to fight, strategy is another story.


	2. Escaping

**ANGEL'S POV:**

The girl before me hesitantly opens up a pair of beautiful wings, going from black at the top, and slowly fading to a gentle white. They match her hair and eyes, her hair is black, really black, and her eyes are silver.

She doesn't really look scared. Just kind of… tired. Her voice is croaky like she hasn't used it in a while, but it's soft and gentle, and hearing it puts me at ease. She blocked me when I tried to read her thoughts, and Max can rarely do that.

Oh, Max…

I can feel the tears stir in my eyes. She'll come and save me, I remind myself, she always does.

I'm snapped from my thoughts when I realize the scene in front of me. The girl is _talking to a white coat_. The white coat is a young, pretty woman, who smiles warmly. She reminds me a lot of Jeb, and I can't help but feel an instant dislike of her.

She's a _white coat!_ Why is the girl talking to her?! The white cost passes her something, a bag, and she slowly gets out of her dog crate.

Why isn't she fighting?

Together, they walk out of the room.

I sit in silence once they've gone, frantically trying to block out the thoughts of Max and the Flock, but I can't.

***Flashback***

_"U& A!" Max calls, and we all spread our wings and fly from the herd of erasers. But one of them grabs Nudge's wing… _

_Suddenly everyone there is screaming and shouting, from Nudge, and a lot of blood, from erasers. _

_Max is flying after the eraser who has Nudge, he holds her wings so tight she winces, unable to fight._

_Max plows into him, knocking him over and scooping up Nudge, who moans in pain, nursing her right wing._

_Suddenly I'm hit, hard, with something from behind. I can feel warm blood down my arms, pain sears throughout my shoulder, and ready to rip me apart, a pair of hands clutching tightly to my wings. If the beast wasn't holding me, I would've plummeted._

_I catch Max dashing towards Fang, where the erasers he'd been fighting are instead converging around me. She frantically passes Nudge over to Fang and hurries to me. _

_Soon, she's fighting the erasers on the outside of the ring that surrounds me, but we keep moving. _

_"Max!" I cry, and they drag into a freaking _helicopter! _I've already been through this!_

_*_**END OF ****FLASHBACK***

I'm thankfully snapped from the awful memory by the scuttling of feet. The blonde female white coat from earlier and the girl enter.

"Get the bag. The cameras are down." The white coat says. The statement can't seem to make sense in my mind.

The girl enters her dog crate, coming back out again with a small, dark back pack.

"We're taking the girl." She says, striding towards my dog crate and hastily unlocking it. Her face is blank and determined, and if she wasn't about to free me from my confines, I'd be terrified of her.

"Can you fly?" she asks, gently helping me out, then up. The white coats had fixed my wing before they threw me in here.

"Yeah, can you?" she nods briefly.

"The window's open. We have about a twenty four hour head start." The woman says. The thought finally seems to register in my mind, we're _escaping._

"What about the tracker?"

"They let me help in the last surgery. The really should be more observant." The woman grins, chucking a small, dime sized chip into the girls empty dog crate.

I realize now the girl is about Max's age. Her hair is in a tight braid that reaches the middle of her back.

"The little girl… she probably still has one." The woman says grimly, glancing at me.

"We'll deal with that when we need to. There's no way we're leaving her here."

The girl steps through the window, and falls forward, disappearing from sight.

"You're next, Angel!" she calls, and I step slowly towards the window. "Use your wings like a parachute!" I don't bother telling her I know, instead I repeat her actions.

I fall towards the ground for a little before spreading my wings and flapping.

"Come on, Ana." The blonde woman peers out.

"I've got to stay. I have to get the others out. Stay… stay safe." The woman looks close to tears.

"No! We can't leave you here! If the find out you helped us they'll… they'll…" the girl drifts off,

"Go. Now." The womans voice is stern, like a mother's "I can keep them off you're trail for a while. They planned on another blackout anyways."

The girl flies towards the window "Are you sure, Ana? You won't slow us down, I promise. I can carry you easily." She pleads but the woman shakes her head.

"Go, please. Look in the back pack." She says, leaning back inside and shutting the window tightly.

The girl calmly flies back towards me.

"Come on, we don't have a lot of time." She takes off flying in some direction I'm not sure of. Her voice holds none of the desperation it did only a second.

I follow her, trying desperately to keep up. Oh my _GOD_ she's fast!

"Sorry." She says, as if reading my mind "I'll go slower." And she does, thankfully, and I study her as she flies.

She's so… graceful. How does she do that? Her wings move slowly, every so often, while I need to continually keep my own going.

"I'm going to go scout below. Stay up here, but keep flying straight."

She dips carefully downwards, and I continue to fly, attempting to mimic how she does it.

"Like this." Her soothing voice comes from behind me, and straightens out the base of my wings.

"Don't tense up so much, ride the air of your last stroke." She says, flying ahead of me. I finally, well sort of, match her way of flying, relieved to find it's not nearly as hard as regular flying.

A few minutes later, she falls back next to me and reaches her hand towards mine.

"We're about to go really, really fast, Angel. Hold tight to my hand and _keep your wings open_." I do as she says, and suddenly, the landscape is blurring below us, and my hair and feathers blow wildly.

In minutes, we're by a series of reddish-orange cliffs. We land by a small cave, across from a rather large nest.

A large bird, a hawk maybe looks at us, cocking it's head.

"Shh…" the girl says, slowly extending her hand out of the cave "Let them catch your scent." I copy her motions, and the bird caws, in what I hope is an approving manor.

"We can stay here until I figure out where the safe house is." She says, sitting indian-style, and dragging the backpack onto her lap.

She doesn't say anything else, but glances at me occasionally.

"Um, are you hungry?" she asks, pulling out a chocolate bar.

"Is that chocolate?" I ask, drooling at the sight of it.

"Um, I think so. Ana put some good stuff in here." She says, smiling slightly and gesturing at the bag on her lap. "Do you want it?" she asks, and I nod furiously

Not only do I love chocolate, but I _am_ pretty hungry.

"I'll find you something with more sustenance in a bit. That'll have to do for now." She says, glancing back down at her bag.

"Thank you." I say, remembering how Max likes it when I use my manners.

"No problem." I glance away from her, at the sky, which is tinted orange from the sun rise.

"What's your name?" I ask after a long period of silence

"I don't have one." She says

"Then pick one. That's what we did." The girl looks up, raising one eyebrow

"We?"

"My flock. I kind of got kidnapped by erasers."

"The wolf guys?" When I nod, she looks about ready to laugh. Then she sees the serious look on my face and the expression melts away.

"Yeah sorry, not funny. I'll tell you later. Do you know where your flock is?" I shake my head

"We were in New York. But they've probably been working on getting here to rescue me." Confusion flickers over the girls face

"Um, where are we right now?"

"California." I say and the girl nods, but still looks like she has no idea where that is.

"Okay. Well, I'll work on getting you back to them."


End file.
